The Children's Crusade - Recap

The episode begins with a cattle brand and Monroe’s M on it. “Time for you to become an official member of the Monroe Militia,” says the soldier with the brand. Charlie it turns out is the person being branded. The scene then flashes back to two days earlier. Charlie and gang are hiding in the woods. They see Monroe Militia carrying a young captive. Charlie wants to rescue him but Miles says they can either rescue everyone they come across or they can go to Philly and get Danny. They come across a group of children, who seem well-armed. The kids have no parents and are living on their own in abandoned buildings.

“Children of the Corn,” says Aaron. The leader of the children was a boy named Peter. He was their leader until he got taken by the Monroe Militia. Peter’s brother, Michael, tells the story of how they all came to be together. Charlie volunteers to help get Peter back. Aaron on his part feels it’s a bad idea. Charlie says that if they don’t save him, the kids will try to take on the militia themselves and will get slaughtered. Back in Philly, Danny and his mother, Rachel, are having a meal together in Monroe’s castle. Monroe summons Rachel. He is getting frustrated. He wants to know why his men have not been able to find any of the power pendants.

He seems to doubt they could even exist and calls them “magical”. He says he looked in all the places Rachel told him to look but found nothing but abandoned houses. Monroe thinks Rachel knows more than she is letting on. Rachel claims she knows nothing. Monroe says, “We did manage to find one of your friends, a Doctor Bradley Jaffe”. Monroe says “friends” like he has total disdain for Rachel and the other people who know about the power pendants. Rachel is worried about “Brad” who Capt. Neville has clearly been torturing. Monroe wants Brad’s pendant. Rachel says she will talk to him. Flashback to three years before the blackout; Rachel goes into a building. It looks like a laboratory. Inside she finds Grace.

Inside the lab, along with Grace is Rachel’s husband, Ben. He is telling another man that his team set out to create a source of clean, low-cost electricity but they totally failed. “A mistake,” he calls it. He says that rather than generating energy it inhibits it. One of Ben’s colleagues is “Brad”. They demonstrate the device and it sucks all the power out of the objects in a special sealed room. Rachel comes in and Ben introduces her to the man who was watching the demonstration. He is a US Defense Department assistant secretary named Flynn. He wants to know if they can replicate the power-sucker on a wide scale. He offers them a lucrative contract to keep their company going.

Rachel does not want to do it, “What if they want to use it as a weapon?” she asks. Charlie and gang is tracking the wagon that was carrying Peter when Miles notices that Peter’s brother, Michael is following them. Michael says he wants to help and they agree to let him. He whistles and 3 more of the young kids come out of hiding. The kids are really young; some seem to be about 5. “Great! They are like a pack of hairless Ewoks!” Aaron says. Charlie and gang along with the kids stop to get water. One of the kids goes into Aaron’s stuff and grabs his power pendant. Aaron gets it back but Miles sees it and asks about it. Aaron says it is nothing. Miles can tell Aaron is not telling the truth.

The group comes across a large ship. Miles tells them it is a conscription facility where they take kids and “re-educate them” to make them into Monroe Militia. Miles says it would be impossible for them to get Peter out of there, as there are just too many soldiers. The scene flashes back and Rachel is having trouble with her pregnancy. The doctors tell her that the bay has a heart problem and may not survive. Back in the militia HQ, tortured Brad is tossed into a jail cell. Rachel is in a cell nearby. She asks him if he still has his pendant. She asks where it is and says she can make sure rebels get it before Monroe does. Brad sees through her ruse. He says, “I wondered how Monroe knew about the pendants, this conversation is over”.

He isn’t ready to tell Rachel anything. In the woods, Charlie is trying to convince Miles that the best way to get Peter off the conscription boat is for Charlie to go onto the boat undercover. Charlie gets herself captured by some militia who will no doubt take her to the boat. Rachel and Brad are talking again. Rachel tells Brad that he is going to be killed if he does not talk. Rachel says she only spoke to Monroe when he captured Danny. Brad says that’s her problem but he isn’t going to say a word. Capt. Neville then brings in Brad’s daughter and says they will kill her is Brad does not talk. Rachel is horrified. Neville says they never could have captured the daughter, or Brad, without Rachel’s help.

She sobs as they cart Brad and his daughter away. On the conscription ship a military man is “re-educating” all the captives, including Charlie and Peter. One boy says he just wants to go home. The military leader beats him badly. In the distance, Miles watches the ship. He feels guilty for all the wrongs he did when he founded and set up the Monroe Militia. Back on the ship, Charlie tries to escape, and almost succeeds, but the military leader grabs her. Miles and Nora decide to storm the ship because Charlie’s escape plan is taking too long. Michael has secretly gone with them. On the boat, Miles kills the guards with his sword. They find Charlie and she leads them to Peter.

They are about to get off the boat when the military leader shows up with Michael as his captive. He orders Miles to lay down his weapons. Aaron and the rest of the kids are hiding in the basement of a lighthouse. Militia guards are nearby. For some reason, Aaron’s power pendant becomes activated and the lighthouse gets powered up. For the first time in more than a decade, it sends a powerful beam of light out for all to see. On the conscription ship, everyone is stunned.

Miles seizes the opportunity to overpower the guards. Charlie ends up striking the killing blow against the military leader, who branded her just moments ago. At the lighthouse, two military guys are getting close to Aaron and the kids. Somehow Aaron manages to overpower them. In Philly, Monroe is talking to Rachel. He says Brad has given up the location of his power pendant. He asks her why she made a device that could take the power away. “What does it matter?” she asks. “All that matters is that I can turn the power back on” she adds. Flashback to Rachel 3 years before the blackout, the DOD guy, Flynn is talking to her. He tells her he can get her into a hospital study that could save her baby.

In other words, it is revealed as to why Rachel agreed to work for the DOD and develop the power-sucker into a weapon. Miles and Charlie hook back up with Aaron and the kids. Miles asks Aaron why the power went back on. Aaron tells him about the power pendant that he got from Ben. Miles wants to destroy it. Aaron won’t let him. Charlie comes over and he tells her the story too, including the part about them needing to find Grace. Grace is being held captive by Randall. Randall’s face is then shown, and it turns out Randall and Flynn, are the same person. The episode ends at this point.